Ashes
by St.Ar. of Suzume
Summary: Set after "Appas lost days". Azula hurt Suki badly and burned her side. The young warrior girl is disillusionated and doesn't know how to go on anymore. Will she be able to accept her new life?
1. Chapter 1

_**AN**_: _This is a fanfiction I've started to write for a collab project on the Avatarportal. Sadly we never finished it... but I wanted to continue it because I liked the idea._

_I am german so english isn't my first language. If I made any grammar mistakes or other mistakes, please notify me so I can change them!_

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**1. Ashes**

_"Don't you know that fans just make flames stronger?", asked Azula contemptuously. Suki didn't hesitate but ran towards Azula, ready to strike. When a blue flash raged towards her, she jumped to the side, losing all her cover, her arms spread to each side to have power for her fans. Azula jumped towards her, preparing for a new flash. Suki blinked and suddenly a blue wall of light was raging towards her, hit her and pushed her onto the ground, unconscious._

"Aaah!" Suki sat up in her bed, her heart beating fast, her breath coming in short gasps. Then she closed her eyes, trying to relax and running her hand absently over her right side. "Again this dream", she mumbled and sighed deeply.

She remembered it as if it were yesterday. How Azula and her two friends had attacked her and the other Kyoshi warriors. How she had been burned... She laid back and stared at the ceiling, sighing deeply again. The dishonouring of being beaten and undressed still made her ache. Of course she got a new uniform when she came home... but how to use it, when you're hurt?

"I could have become the greatest female warrior next to Kyoshi", she mumbled. But one second of inattention and all this, the glowing path which had laid in front of her, had changed into a dark one, a dead-end. Yes, she was still called a warrior, but she didn't feel like a warrior. After the accident she had been cured by a family who had found her lying there, unconscious. They had tried their very best to make the wound less aching, to keep the skin soft so she could move well... But it has been difficult. Suki could have been glad that she still was able to walk.. more limp.. instead of lying in bed, but she wasn't. Because her burned skin wouldn't let her be a fighter again. And that was what she always has been. A fighter. Flexible and firm at the same time, strong, intelligent, dodging the attacking person.. But she hasn't been able to dodge this flash.

_Suki turned around and closed her eyes. What have I done in these 2 months...?_, she asked herself.

On the surface it looked as if she had just gone back to her normal life in Kyoshi after being cured. But Suki knew better. Of course, she was teaching the younger girls again, but she could feel a difference. Some movements were aching, made her almost cry from the pain, but she didn't stop. She still wanted to do her best, she still wanted to help the Avatar with his burden.

But the most aching part wasn't the big scar, which marked her right side and her upper leg. It was her pride that had been hurt when their uniforms had been stolen, their sign of pride and honour. It was aching through all this time, making Suki feel weak and useless.

She got up slowly, her side aching like always. She left her stick where it was, right next to the door and limped with gritted teeth over to the dojo, where soon the young girls of the town would gather to learn something new from Suki-sensei.

_Suki-sensei, that's what they call me... All I can do is hold a fan, barely do some moves.. I'm not worth it to be called a sensei..._, she thought, clenching her fists.

She went into the dojo, where she washed her face with cold water and then changed into her fighting clothes. Every time she put them on she had to see the scar in the mirror of the room where she changed. Of course she could have looked away from her reflections, but her eyes fixed on the red sign on her side every time... it started in the middle of her body and went down to her hip. On her right leg was also a smaller mark. The marks of her defeat against Azula. Not only dishonouring by stealing her clothes, but also marking her till the end of her life, making her unable to fight again because even walking without the stick made Suki nearly cry. But she forced herself to do it, to pretend to be strong as she had been years ago. She tried to ignore the fact that she couldn't move correctly, that she wasn't flexible anymore.

"A good warrior has to be like a bamboo, strong but flexible at the same time! Because if you aren't flexible, you'll break at the slightest gust of air!" That's what she always says to her pupils...

She would break in every fight with this scar. It had hardened her flesh so she was even unable to bend down. Anger rose in Suki. She could have become like Kyoshi, an idol for the young girls of the island. Not only that, she could have helped to settle the war... and Azula destroyed all this with one simple strike...

"Arrrgh!" Suki grabbed her fans, cutting with them through the air like they were knives, feeling again like a few months ago, sane and strong. She kicked hard in the air and a pain raged through her side. "Ungh..." She sank to the ground, breathing hard, sweatdrops running down her forehead.

"Suki-sensei, is everything alright?", asked a small voice from the door of the dojo. She looked up horrified to see young Coco.

"Everything's alright!" Suki got up in one fast motion, gritting her teeth so she didn't let out a moan of pain. "Now get dressed...", she said and went into her private room where only she as the sensei could enter.

- - -

word explanations:

**dojo** like a gym, with tatami mats on the floor

**sensei** jap. for master, teacher


	2. Chapter 2

**2. Regenerate**

Suki shouted a few commands and the girls followed her orders, cutting the air with their fans and moving in ways Suki could never move again

Suddenly the shoji of the dojo slammed open and the girls stopped in their training to stare at the visitor. Suki turned around to see who it could be and while she was turning time turned back almost 1 year ago...

_"Oh... hey, Suki." Again this boy from the watertribe who accompanied the Avatar showed up in the dojo. But, to Sukis surprise, he wasn't as half as self-confident as before and he even _apologised_ for what he thought of them, being girls and that girls can't fight. He made a bow and begged to be taught by them.. by her, Suki._

Suki smiled.

_"Alright... But you have to follow all our traditions!", she'd said with an evil smile. This poor boy had no idea what their traditions meant... but Suki was sure that he would look cute, even more cute than at the moment, when he wore the dress and make-up..._

"Suki-sensei? Suki-sensei!"

Suki snapped out of her reverie and saw that it was one of her pupils who was standing in the shoji, not Sokka. She twitched when she thought his name.

"I'm sorry, Suki-sensei, I'm a little late...", the girl said shyly, a bit confused by the strange behavior of her teacher. Suki nodded absently, still half caught in her memories.

"Get dressed and then get in the row", she commanded before she turned to Coco. "Keep an eye on them, I'll be back in a few minutes." She walked with the stick Coco brought her to her private room where she let herself sink slowly down to the floor.

_Sokka..._

Most of the time she tried to stop herself from thinking of him. Often it worked, but sometimes it was like today, something happened around her and it brought her back to the time she met him. The luckier days when she had been a warrior and didn't need anyone to protect her. She smiled a bit as she remembered how she has beaten him up the first time he entered the Dojo, disturbing their _dance lesson._

But the smile quickly faded away and for a moment her bright eyes darkened like a clouded sky again, as she reminded herself that she couldn't fight like this anymore.

_I'm a warrior... but I'm a girl, too!_, was what she had said to him. Now she was just a girl, defenceless and helpless. Someone she never wanted to be. Someone Sokka never would have fallen in love with.

He had been a warrior, she had been a warrior, they had been equals. Things had been perfect. They had been perfect for each other, but now nothing was perfect anymore, everything was broken and burned.

After she had returned to Kyoshi she had been told that a "falcon with a message from a Sakko or Sokki " had been there just two weeks ago. The villagers asked if she wanted someone to reply to this message, to tell him, that she was alive, since he must think she was dead after no reply came for such a long time. But Suki didn't want to.

Of course she had wanted to see him, thinking of him had helped her to heal, to hold on, and she had been longing for him, his carefree personality and even his strange humour that had always made her laugh.

But she wasn't the same anymore. He met her as the warrior Suki, he fell in love with the warrior Suki. But this had been the old Suki, the not scarred Suki. This Suki no longer existed, she was dead and it was best for him to think that of her, because somehow it was the truth.

Suki looked up at the mirror. A young woman with big, grey eyes in a pale face, framed by long brown hair looked back. She hadn't cut her hair since she got injured, not caring about her appereance anymore, not needing a short haircut because there was no longer a need for it if she wasn't fighting.

It was as if Suki hadn't seen herself for months and, in fact, it was the truth. She'd always fixated on her scar, so she barely noticed the rest of her body or even her face.

"This isn't me", she and the girl in the mirror whispered. She gritted her teeth and clenched her fists. "Maybe Sokka thinks that I'm dead and maybe he buried me and our past, but I won't! I know that I can still be the Suki I once was!"

With these words a spark appeared in her eyes and a smile formed on her lips. Yes, that was the old Suki. Well, not _all_ of her. Something was missing...

She reached out for one of the fans, the edges as sharp as a knife. She pulled her hair together at the base of her neck as if she would make a ponytail and then cut through them with one fast motion. The strands fell slowly to the ground like feathers.

When Suki entered the room where the others were still training she had a smile on her red painted lips.

"Suki-sensei!", Coco shouted. "You cut your hair! A-and...!", she lost her voice and was gaping at Suki like the other girls did, because their sensei was wearing the Kyoshi uniform with the heavy armor over the green silk. Her face was painted in white, red and black was decorating her eyes, making them shine in a mysterious way. It was as if the uniform of Avatar Kyoshi had come down from her pile and into the dojo.

"Yes", Suki smiled. "It was about time."

The armor was heavy and it was even harder to limp but she felt strong enough to carry it and for the first time in all these years she felt the honour raging through her body again.

- - -

**shoji** a slide door which leads from the inside of a house to the outside


End file.
